GRIT Studios CIC

**COLOSSAL ANNOUNCEMENT** Stockport Paint Jam is back, and this year it’s on a much bigger scale! Taking place on Sunday 22 September from 12pm-5pm, this free family-friendly festival is set to transform the town centre into a vibrant street art playground with over 50 of the UK’s hottest street artists in action. This year’s festival is extending into the heart of the town centre for the first time, thanks to Totally Stockport, with street artists creating a 1km walking tour from Merseyway Shopping Centre to Little Underbank and Hopes Carr to the festival hub and home of GRIT Studios on Canal Street. Expect walls alive with colour, beats from top DJs, skateboarding, break dancing, street food and more. Stockport's food & drink independents are rallying around as they always do for civic events - one of the key reasons why the town is on the up. Sign up for your FREE tickets here: https://lnkd.in/e2-TsU75 Pray for sunshine This project is part-funded by the UK government through the UK Shared Prosperity Fund.

We’ve had some more colour injected into the backstreets of Stockport. How much better does this space look?! All thanks to the talented @alex__cullen who has been working his magic. If you like your street art, stay tuned, something mega is brewing.... 22.09.24

Announcing Drawn In Co-Working Day at GRIT Manchester.... Calling out to illustrators in Manchester and beyond, let’s draw it in together for a co-working day at GRIT Studios in Manchester city centre on Wednesday 28 August.�This is an opportunity to co-work in a relaxed and friendly creative space and meet and chat to other illustrators, because we know that illustration can feel like a lonely business sometimes!��In the morning, we’ll meet at Alex’s bakery on Deansgate for a coffee, before heading up to the co-working space together for a 10am start. The day will end in small groups for peer-to-peer reviews, creating the opportunity for you to talk and get some feedback on a piece of work or your portfolio (there are no rules, it’s up to you!). Illustrators of all levels of experience welcome - whether you’re new to illustration or a seasoned pro, we’d love to see you there. �The plan for the day looks like this:�� 9:30am-10am - Coffee at Alex’s bakery� 10am-1pm - Co-work� 1pm-2pm - Lunch� 2-4pm - Co-work� 4-5pm - Peer-to-peer reviews� 5pm onwards - Drinks at a local bar We’re excited to be a GRIT Studios for the day. Based in the grade II Great Northern warehouse, GRIT offers quality and affordable studios for artists, makers, and creatives. � Tickets: �£10 / £8 tickets (general / AOI)�Book early to avoid disappointment as places limited The Drawn In team look forward to sent you there! @brand.warrior @cathers_lou @studio.antigravity @nathanhackett_illustrator @_louisefrench Drawn In is part of The Association of Illustrators Tickets: https://lnkd.in/eXKK7Cjy

Eden Project in the back streets of Stockport??? We're super proud that our community recently won ‘The Sharing Table Award’ - a national competition launched by Eden Project & City & Guilds with over 300 entries. This incredible journey has seen us welcome visitors from across the UK to Canal Street in Stockport. Most notably the crew from VIY, who worked with local young people to design & create GRIT its very own Sharing Table. We had a little party on Sunday, welcoming many of the people back who have supported us over the past couple of years. We shared food (thank you Mekong Kat for the yummy scran!), stories & painty fun in the sunshine.

LOOKY HERE 👀 SHARE SHOP - A little collaboration on the cards with our friends at @whatif_stockport We all know #sharingiscaring and so the idea of using a big old empty room in a big old community building to create a library of free, surplus creative materials has popped up… The hope is that there will be a place where people can explore, take what they need and like, explore their crafting with new materials and leftover bits and bobs. Others can donate crafty and arty things they have an excess of and the circular economy of creative surplus can fuel an explosion of locally rooted creativity! or so we hope... The spirit of creativity and generosity in #Stockport is now forming a new hub of arty goodies here in #Edgeley that we hope will be accessible to everyone! Did we mention there’s free brews and snack here too, so you can have a play in the space and make a session of it too? The potential to spark creative ideas that shape the building’s feel and inspire the local area, even new workshops that could grow from this seed of a What if? Launching this Friday 16th of August - What If? Ideas Cafe, Hardman Street SK3 0BJ 9 am til 11am. Then open 1pm til 3pm on Fridays to start.. Pop down and say hi!

At the start of the year I took a trip to the National Portrait Gallery for inspiration and took this photograph, then yesterday my artist friend Helen Davies (@helendavies.art) sent me this piece she created. Helen works out of GRIT Studios CIC who champion ordinary people with extraordinary talent. Helen is phenomenal, please check out her work! I find there is something very beautiful in life becoming art becoming even more art ✨

A delivery of wood chipping today led to lots of laughs down in the community garden. Volunteers from our local @stockporthomes hostels (who always have our back) and the brilliant S&A from @viyproject helped with litter picking, spreading chippings & tidying. The space is now spruced up ready for our community lunch in a couple of weeks. More on that soon! If anyone wants any wood chippings we have lots left over - bring a bag & help yourself from the pile on Canal St.

Tomorrow is Manchester Day. The city centre will turn into a free fun-filled playground for the afternoon (12-6pm). Four of our talented GRIT Studios CIC tribe will be there, creating portraits for you to take home. We love providing paid opportunities for our artists, events with civic pride, and bringing art to the masses, so Manchester Day is right up our street! Be sure to say hello to Jenny Leonard John Cooper Nasha Cash and Pete Obsolete.

**COMPETITION TIME** We are excited to be teaming up with Stockport County FC again this month to produce a County-themed mural behind the Together - loans, mortgages & finance Stand. 11 young people will selected to produce the artwork, which will draw inspiration from the Club's Latin motto, Animo Et Fide – With Courage and Faith. We've got 3 places to give away to some lucky 14-17 year olds who want to learn spray-painting, leave their mark on Edgeley Park, have a behind the scenes tour of the stadium, and get free tickets to the game vs Blackburn Rovers on 2nd August. The street art workshop will take place on Tuesday 30th July. To enter a young person, just comment "County" underneath this post. Good luck!

We've met lots of talented people doing heaps for their local community since we started GRIT Studios. The people at Withington Walls have always been super supportive when we've needed advice or a shoulder to lean on with some of our projects. They've got a thing going on this weekend. It's going to be ace. We're proud to sponsor them. Get yourselves down to Withington.👇🏽